John G. Shedd Aquarium: A Master Energy Roadmap

A master energy roadmap develops a holistic and integrated strategy for energy management by aligning energy use with Shedd's core missions.

Master Energy Roadmap provided a path for Shedd to cut energy purchases in half by 2020

Aligning energy with the mission. Shedd was seeking a holistic and integrated strategy for energy management by aligning smart energy initiatives with the institution’s core missions. To date, Shedd has approached energy use management by focusing on one-off facility improvements that were aimed at reducing energy consumption. Shedd recognized that they lacked a cohesive strategy for evaluating and implementing energy improvements. Additionally, Shedd understood the costs of their current energy usage, both financial and environmental, and wanted to better align how they used energy with their missions of education, stewardship, and facility excellence.

For assistance, Shedd turned to West Monroe Partners and the Civic Consulting Alliance to create a Master Energy Roadmap that would strategically lay out the objectives and improvements that were needed to transform how the Shedd uses energy.

Developing a Master Energy Roadmap.
Shedd valued West Monroe’s ability to coordinate and align a large group of stakeholders in order to complete a multi-year energy use transformation project. West Monroe Partners worked closely with Shedd’s leadership following a simple and effective three step process:

Current State Profile Assessment - Working closely with Shedd’s facilities management team, West Monroe Partners leveraged readily available facility usage data to model the total and component level energy usage of the Shedd.

Energy Opportunity Evaluations - West Monroe Partners convened a workshop with a 16 member team, which included a variety of energy thought leaders from around the region, to review the current state profile assessment and discuss the preliminary energy opportunities Shedd should consider implementing. Additionally, West Monroe Partners engaged 14 additional stakeholders and vendors to validate and vet the scope of the Master Energy Roadmap and the team’s identified energy opportunities.

Roadmap and Recommendations- Evaluating a total of 24 potential energy opportunities against the three mission focused criteria of Financial Value, Energy Value, and Institutional Value, West Monroe Partners outlined a two-phase vision for transforming how energy is managed at Shedd.

Special considerations specific to Shedd’s missions, such as supplying backup energy in the event of an outage, were incorporated into the Master Energy Roadmap which helped meet the specific needs of this complex facility.

By setting quantifiable objectives and outlining the specific projects that should be implemented to meet those goals, the Master Energy Roadmap was a mission-aligned, actionable strategy for Shedd to use as a guiding document during their energy transformation.

Establishing a path for future success. Based on the development of the Master Energy Roadmap, Shedd is now able to align executive leadership and external stakeholders around a concrete and actionable plan. The Master Energy Roadmap enables Shedd to move forward with securing specific project funding, engaging vendors, and executing energy projects focused around a mission-aligned plan.